The present disclosure relates to resource management and configuration in a wireless digital network. In particular, the present disclosure relates to role discovery and automatic over the air provisioning of a network device in a wireless mesh network (WMN).
Wireless digital networks, including wireless networks operating under IEEE 802.11 standards, are spreading in their popularity and availability. With such popularity, however, come problems of resource management and configuration. Specifically, when a network device joins a wireless mesh network after the network device starts up or reboots, the network device needs to be properly provisioned and configured in order to successfully become a member of a wireless mesh network. Typically, management and configuration of such network device is completed by an administrator manually. Such configuration of network devices in remote offices typically requires entering provisioning information (e.g., whether the network device is a mesh portal or a mesh point) as well as network configuration information (e.g., the virtual controller identifier corresponds to the wireless network to be joined). Therefore, such network device management and configuration process is inefficient and prone to errors from, e.g., human inputs.